


a different kind of buzz

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7667695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things have changed of late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is NOT the modern royalty AU I've been working on forever, but JD and Mir both posted REALLY AMAZING modern royalty fics recently and inspired me in a different direction. And inspiration's scarce enough these days that I'll take it where I can get it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and as, always, please be gentle if you review!

“Are you busy?”

Jemma’s heart does an absurd little leap, but she’s had enough practice by now to keep her smile as she turns and stands to meet her (somewhat) unexpected guest.

“Not at all, Your Majesty,” she says, stepping aside so he can see the game of solitaire on her screen. “I’m just waiting for some results to—what?”

The king is giving her a little frown. Not the Royal Frown all the papers joke about, the one that scared a duke into knocking over a mountain of wine glasses at a reception last month, but a smaller, more—if she dared to apply such a word to her monarch— _pouty_ one.

“I believe I’ve asked you to call me Grant,” he says. “Have I not?”

“Yes,” she admits. “Several times.” At his raised eyebrows, she braces herself and adds a tiny, “Grant.”

She’s very proud she manages not to flinch as she does it.

“Now, was that so hard?” he asks, frown giving way to a smile. “There’s no need to look so scared—I don’t bite.”

“ _You’re_ not the one I’m frightened of,” she says, choosing to ignore (and therefore not interpreting) the undertone to that last bit. “Every time I so much as make eye contact with Your—with you,” she corrects, as his smile starts to fade, “I expect Madam Hand to pop out of a closet and scold me.”

The king throws his head back and laughs, sincerely and—incidentally—very handsomely. Jemma hastily redirects her thoughts as her heart gives another little leap.

Madam Hand is, among other things, responsible for instructing all new hires and students at the Royal Academies in the proper forms of address for and behavior towards nobility and royalty. She’s a very harsh taskmaster, infamous for her surprise drills and insistence on perfection: one slurred syllable could see a pupil set an extra week’s worth of classes, and her punishments are discussed—even years after the fact—only in frightened whispers.

Jemma herself fared rather well in Madam Hand’s lessons, but she never expected to need them so often; in the past, her wing of the Royal Academy of Science—that is, the wing dedicated to research—only saw royal company once a year, when the old king did his annual tour. Aside from that, they would only get the occasional visit from a member of the nobility sponsoring this study or that.

Things have changed of late.

“Well, I can definitely understand _that_ ,” the king says, still chuckling. “She’s a terror, isn’t she?”

That’s putting it _lightly_ , as far as Jemma’s concerned.

“You should make her head of interrogations,” she says, thinking of how Dr. Chaimson still flinches to hear Madam Hand’s name. “I’m sure she’d do marvelously.”

The king grins. “What makes you think I haven’t already?”

“The fact that we have any enemies left,” she replies promptly, and he laughs again.

“Fair enough.”

Silence draws out as he leans back against her lab bench, considering her, and Jemma—quite unwilling to face what the expression he’s wearing might mean—rushes to fill it.

“I’m not being completely absurd, you know,” she says. “She’s started doing spot checks of late, ever since—” Realizing she can’t actually voice her intended ending to that sentence, she fumbles for a new one and settles on a lame, “—well, since Your Majesty became king.”

Even on his annual tour, the old king rarely lingered in the Academy of Science; he would speed through, barely pausing to glance at more than two or three ongoing projects, and leave within the hour—quite a feat for a building of twelve stories and tens of thousands of square feet.

In dramatic contrast, King Grant has been a frequent visitor. At first he was making near-daily trips to the Forensics floors, keeping close track of the investigation into the tragic fire that killed his parents and older brother and took him from second in line to the throne to king in one fell swoop.

But the investigation closed nearly six months ago, and since then, his (usually weekly) visits have been…well, to her.

Putting it in such bold terms—even in her own mind—leaves her face burning, and she turns swiftly away from him to hide it. She’s lost all sense of time, so checking the status of her experiment makes as good an excuse as any.

“Do you need to get back to work?” he asks. Her peripheral vision catches him straightening. “I don’t mean to keep you from it.”

After taking another moment to regain her composure, she turns back to him with her best smile.

“No, Your Maj—Grant,” she amends—without any cues from him, this time, and it leaves him grinning. “It will still be a while yet before my results are ready.”

“Guess science is a lot like military life, huh?” he asks, relaxing against the lab bench once more. “Lots of hurry up and wait.”

“I suppose so,” she agrees.

“Or diplomacy,” he says, with an exaggerated wince. “That…probably should’ve been my first thought. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

Six months ago, if anyone had told Jemma that her king would one day give her _puppy eyes_ , she would have thought them delusional. Now, she can only—mortifyingly—giggle in the face of such an endearing expression.

In her defense, getting such a look from the most powerful man in the world would make _anyone_ giddy.

“My lips are sealed,” she promises.

“Thank you.” He shakes his head. “I can already picture _The_ _Rising Tide_ ’s headlines about me placing violence over diplomacy. Again.”

Uncertain precisely what to say, Jemma restricts herself to a sympathetic hum. As tradition dictates for a king’s second son, King Grant was in the armed forces before he took the throne, and the rebel newspaper _The Rising Tide_ has made quite a fuss over his so-called fondness for military action.

Or so she hears. For any employee of a royally funded organization, even being in possession of a copy of _The Rising Tide_ is grounds for sacking, and as such, she’s avoided it like the plague.

(Actually, that’s a terrible simile—there are no surviving samples of the plague, and she’d quite like to encounter it for study…under proper laboratory conditions, of course.)

“Speaking of which,” he says, pushing off the bench and stepping towards her, “I should probably leave you to your work and get back to mine. But first…”

He takes both her hands in his, and Jemma would swear her heart stops beating entirely. It’s been a _decade_ since holding hands with someone was enough to make her blush, and yet she can’t deny that his warm, gentle grip brings heat back to her face.

“I would be honored if you would join me for dinner on Saturday,” he says.

She stares. “I—I’m sorry?”

“On a date,” he specifies. “And not a public one. A private dining room in the palace, just you and me.”

“I—I don’t—”

Jemma is entirely flummoxed.

Perhaps she shouldn’t be—wasn’t she just thinking that he’s been coming to the Academy solely to visit her?—but she is. She never expected his friendly flirting to turn into a request for a date; she half expected a lewd proposition when it first started—the old king was quietly infamous for that sort of behavior—but when it never happened, she assumed he was just…

She doesn’t know what she assumed. In fact, she’s been working very hard not to give it much thought at all.

“You’re under no obligation,” the king says, plainly concerned by her senseless stammering. “I’m asking you as a person, not your king; nothing’ll happen if you—”

“Yes,” she interrupts, and then bites her lip. “Sorry. But yes, I’d—I’d love to.”

“Great.” He relaxes, giving her hands a gentle squeeze. “Is seven okay? I could send a car to pick you up?”

“I—yes, thank you,” she says, a bit faintly. Her heart is racing fit to burst; her agreement escaped quite without her permission, but it’s too late to take it back now. Not that she really _wants_ to, it’s just—

How can she go on a date with the _king_?

“Great,” he repeats, and then—after another quick squeeze—drops her hands and steps back. “Can I see your phone?”

Numbly, she passes it over; then, as he taps at it, pulls herself firmly under control. It’s not as though he’s proposed _marriage_ ; it’s just a date, and for all she knows, he’ll have got her out of his system by the end of it. There’s no call to be such a mess over it.

…Though there may be call to be a mess over just how devastating she finds the thought of him getting her out of his system. Oh dear.

“There,” he says, handing her phone back. Glancing down, she finds he’s created a new contact (as _Grant_ , of course) and sent a text message that says _Jemma’s phone_ , presumably to give himself her number. “If anything comes up before Saturday, you can text me, okay? Or just if you feel like it. I encourage casual texting.”

“So I’ve heard,” she says, as dryly as she can manage with her heart still shaken, and he grins.

“Those rumors of me texting during Christian’s wedding were completely exaggerated,” he claims—not particularly convincingly.

Several smart comments come to mind, but she bites them back; (former) Crown Prince Christian is deceased, after all, and she doesn’t want to be disrespectful—or, worse, reopen any still-healing wounds.

“If you say so, Your Majesty,” she says instead…and then bites her tongue as his grin becomes—she has a date (a date!) with him on Saturday, she can call it what it is—a pout. “I mean…Grant.”

“We’ll work on that,” he promises. “For now, I’ll let you get back to work. See you on Saturday.”

“Saturday,” she agrees, warmed by how pleased he sounds.

He gives her a little bow—though even slight as it is, it’s still far deeper than the _king_ should be giving a random, commonly-born scientist—and then he’s gone, out the door before she can gather herself enough to curtsy in return.

(There’s an art to curtsying in a lab coat; Madam Hand was relentless in instilling the skill in all of her scientifically inclined pupils.)

“Oh, no,” Jemma says to no one in particular, and collapses onto her lab stool as her knees finally fail her.

She has the sinking suspicion that even in such shallow waters—it’s only a first date, for goodness’ sake—she’s already in over her head.


	2. panic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do have plans for like a FULL sequel of this, but for now, some prompted this and "panic" for my existing verses meme on tumblr. Enjoy?
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3

“Oh my god,” Skye says, the laugh plain in her voice. “I have literally never seen you this indecisive. Ever.”

“I _know_ ,” Jemma groans, and—distraught—collapses face-first into her pile of rejected outfits. “It’s awful.”

She’s never been the sort of girl to dither over what to wear on a date. Quite the opposite; so keen is her fashion sense, she became very popular during her time at the Royal Academy as a sort of consultant for her fellow cadets, helping them to select the perfect ensemble for a variety of occasions.

This—this _breakdown_ is entirely unlike her.

“Are you kidding?” The bed shifts under Skye’s weight as she flops down next to Jemma. “This is amazing! I’ve been waiting _years_ for the chance to be your fashion guru!”

Jemma groans again. Quite pathetically, she’s afraid.

Skye rubs her back, and when she speaks again, her voice is much gentler. “You really like this guy, huh?”

The fabric her face is buried in, though very soft, is making it rather hard to breathe. Jemma rolls onto her side to face Skye, hoping her hesitation will be blamed on the repositioning.

“I do.”

That’s not a _lie_ , per se. She does like the king— _Grant_ —very much. She’s been sighing over him for months now, shamefully delighted by his every visit, no matter how brief. She wants desperately to make a good impression and even more desperately for the date to go well.

It’s only that her attachment to Grant isn’t the problem here. It’s the location of the date.

She’s been to the palace once before—her father took her when she was a girl, insisting that everyone needed to see it at least once—and while she was young enough that the memories are somewhat vague, she does remember the awe that swept over her…followed swiftly by intimidation. The rooms they went through on the public tour were large, echoing, decorated lavishly and furnished with antiques. Every painting, every wall hanging, every _light fixture_ was accompanied by a plaque warning visitors not to touch in twelve different languages.

Jemma knows what to wear to the cinema, to dinner at a variety of restaurants, to the theatre and the park and even for a hiking date ( _nothing_ , because she is never getting talked into that torture ever again). She has no idea what to wear to an intimate dinner at the palace. With the king.

She groans again, sitting up that she might bury her face in her hands.

“Wow,” Skye says, scooting closer. “Who _is_ this guy?”

“Just…someone I met at work.”

_That_ is much closer to a lie—misdirection, at the very least—but her twinge of guilt must not show itself on her face or in her voice, because Skye barely blinks. It’s a relief.

Skye grew up in an orphanage that was something of a pet project for the old queen and, as such, holds a bone-deep skepticism of all things royal. Should things with Grant go anywhere (not an assumption Jemma is at all confident in making), she’ll eventually need to be told the truth, but for the moment, Jemma is happy to avoid any lectures on the subject.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about!” Skye declares, clapping her hands. “He’s used to seeing you in your lab coat and jeans! Anything different is new! Wear a skirt, you’ll knock his socks off.”

It’s a nice thought, but… “ _Which_ skirt? He said it should be casual! Do I _have_ any casual skirts?”

“I was wrong,” Skye says. “This isn’t amazing, it’s _adorable_.”

“My suffering is adorable?” Jemma asks, betrayed.

“When it makes you lose every last drop of your cool—and, apparently, fashion sense? Yes.”

Jemma pins her with a glare.

“You,” she says severely, “are not helping.”

Skye tsks, bounces to her feet, and pulls Jemma to hers, after which things become something of a blur. The next thing Jemma knows, she’s fully dressed and Skye is wishing her luck as she shoves her out the door and slams it behind her.

Then she pulls it back open long enough to admonish, “Make good choices! No sex on the first date. Unless you really really really want it, in which case use a condom. I’m too young to be an auntie!”

“Skye!”

“Shoo,” Skye orders, and slams the door again.

Jemma laughs to herself as she takes the stairs down to the ground level, relieved to find that her amusement and affection for Skye have chased away all of her nerves. All that’s left is a pleasant, giddy butterflies-in-the-stomach sort of sensation.

Of course, the sight of the limousine waiting for her brings her awful, nauseous panic right back. But the excitement was nice while it lasted.


End file.
